NOTE: STA is now available 24/7/365. This post should be of historical interest only at this point 
Dear Friend,
I told you last week that I would take STA off the market soon. It’s true.
Let me tell you the “what” and the”why” of it.
The What
Basically, it boils down to this: STA will be available for purchase only on the first Monday and Tuesday of every month.
That means STA will be available this month only on April 7th and April 8th.
Now this first month, I’m not actually pulling STA off the market between now and April 8th, so you can purchase any time between now and then. But after April 8th you won’t be able to get it again until May 5th and 6th. And after that it will be June 2nd and 3rd.
Also, I’m only going to field sales-related questions for 7 days leading up to and including the days it’s available for purchase. So I will field sales-related questions for the two days it is for sale, and for the 5 days prior to that. If I get any sales related questions outside of that window, I probably won’t read them.
I will, of course, continue to answer customer questions at all times. And I’m open to Joint Venture proposals at any time as well. But I won’t field any sales-related questions.
As for customer service after purchase, nothing will change. You will still have direct email support for a full 6 months after purchase.
Now I know this sounds a little brazen, so let me explain myself a bit. I think there are some pretty good reasons for doing things this way. I think you’ll see how the new arrangement might benefit you, so hear me out, and then let me know what you think.
The Why
Why am I doing this?
Basically, it’s because I wear too many hats all the time. In my little corner of the business world I’m the sales guy, the programmer, the copywriter, the tester, the new product developer, the customer service representative, and, yes, I even do the taxes
I’m sure some of you can relate to this.
And here’s the thing: Many people who have used multiple split testing products have told me that STA is the best testing product on the market for small businesses.
That might be true, and I work hard to try to make sure it is true. Many people love it. I could impress you with a list of heavy hitters who use it. There are dozens of names you would recognize in an instant. STA has kind of spread by word of mouth in certain circles.
But among the average small business owner, it’s not the most used testing and tracking product on the market at this point.
And that’s because I’ve been doing way too many jobs all by myself, and I haven’t juggled all the jobs very effectively.
Now it’s not the number of jobs that’s a problem. It’s that not all the jobs are the same. They all require different levels of focus.
If you’re a programmer, you know that when you’re working on a programming project, you need vast stretches of uninterrupted time.
The mere possibility of being interrupted takes some of the attention away from the task and doesn’t allow you to focus as well as you need to.
Same goes for most product development projects, whether it involves writing, recording audio or video, or programming.
Unfortunately, in the past, when I’ve put on the product development hat, I’ve still had on the sales and customer service hats.
And that has put me at the mercy of other people’s schedules to some degree. Because many of the questions I get aren’t things I can just shoot off quick answers to.
And that means I can’t focus as well on product development.
And that means it takes me twice as long to do new creative work . . .
. . . and it’s a whole lot less enjoyable when it’s riddled through with start and stop episodes.
Waaaaah! Poor Baby!
OK, I’m not saying all this for sympathy. I don’t need sympathy, because I came up with a solution
Going forward I’m going to wear the sales hat for only 1 week per month. The week after that I might have to field a few questions about installation and setup, and then I should have a good 2+ weeks every month available to focus on creating new things.
So how does this benefit you?
Well, I think you’ll enjoy some of the new things I’m planning on creating :-D Some of it involves STA 5.0. And there are some other projects in the works as well.
I’ll say more about that in another message soon.
Stay tuned.
Jim
P.S., please, feel free to leave your comments below.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hmm. Jim this sounds like a creative idea at first, but is not practical for an online 24/7 business.
I think you should start outsourcing the things you don’t like to do, or are done more cheaply elsewhere.
Try reading “4 hour work week” and you might come up with a better solution where you work less and make even more money.
Since reading the book, I’ve stopped checking email more than 1-2 times per day and in the last month alone I made $7k more for one of my clients because I could focus more.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Jim,
As someone who has suffered the same fate for most of the past decade, I can tell you that the best way out of the problem is NOT to limit your sales in any way, but to make that your highest priority. Revenue buys relief. Good luck, either way.
Harry Gilliam
March 31st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Good Layout and design. I like your blog. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. .
Jason Rakowski
March 31st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Peter Koning is dead-on vis a vis the “4 Hour Workweek”. Tim’s approach to email has given me my life back! I think that’s one thing that could radically improve your situation.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Oh, yeah, Jim. Put a link to the product on this blog!
March 31st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I absolutely can relate to this. Very good solution… it’s a win-win for us all.
HD
March 31st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Hey Peter. Good to hear from you.
I respect your opinion, and will carry it around in the back of my mind going forward.
I’ve read “4 hour work week”. And you’re right. I need to outsource some.
I can see that it would be pretty easy to do that with many products, but I’m finding it a little more difficult to do so with STA. I need help that’s very technically savvy. I’m open to suggestions for securing good help without too much up front commitment.
Also, STA is not an impulse purchase. Most people purchase a month or so after learning about it anyway. I have the statistics to prove it
I’m going to measure very closely whether this new arrangement costs sales.
My best guess is that it will actually result in more sales in the long run, because I will be able to focus more on the sales process, and on improving the software more and more as time goes by.
Jim
March 31st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
As a web-developer / programmer I sympathize and empathize with your situation. I have enjoyed the 8 lessons that you sent, and have them permanently bound in my binder.
I wish you the best, and would like to hear how it works out for you.
Dave
March 31st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Hi Jim:
Let me add a ringing endorsement for Peter’s suggestion
regarding “outsourcing”.
If you research firms in India that specialize in customer service, I sure you will find one with a base of workers with the requisite technological savy.
Or with with a little training from you they can be brought up to speed.
With the right outsourcing support in place you may get to the point where
ALL your support obligations are eliminated.
Best of success,
Robert
March 31st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Hi Jim,
I think limit your sales it’s not a good idea!
There are great outsourcing services out there!
In my own experience I have given technical tasks and customer services to third parties, with great quality!
Think about it! At least try it! But don’t limit your sales!
Best,
Dan
March 31st, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Wow. I didn’t think I’d get this many comments so quickly.
I probably won’t reply to every comment, and I’ll probably wait until tonight to write more.
Thank you all for your heartfelt advice.
Man, there’s a lot of love out there! It makes me feel good
But I want to assure you that I haven’t lost my mind.
I also want to assure you that I’m not trying to get fewer sales
I’m actually trying to have it all. I want more time for development, AND more sales.
I’m limiting the *time* for sales — hopefully not sales.
I told you my main rationale for the change in the blog post above. But here’s part of what I’m hoping for as a side benefit:
The new arrangement should give me a nice chance to keep you all, and the other peple on this list, updated about new features and offerings on a monthly basis.
And the limited window *might* give people the urgency they need to pull the trigger and get started.
I say *might*, because I don’t know. I will be tracking things very carefully.
Many products sell very well when offered only for a short time.
I’m sure we can all probably name a few right off the top of our heads. (thank Jeff Walker for that)
Will the limited sales window work in this case? I don’t know. I hope so. But I don’t know for sure. I can tell you I’ll be measuring things very carefully.
Rest assured, if it looks like it’s not working, and lost sales outweigh my productivity gains, I’ll reverse course.
If it works as I hope, it will be better all the way around.
With that said, thank you for your comments and advice. I appreciate them much. And keep them coming.
Jim
March 31st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Hi Jim,
I’m wondering if you’re being too optimistic about the support only taking a week or so after the sales? I don’t know but maybe the suggestions about outsourcing are the way to go. Though I appreciate it’s a very technical product. But there must be a lot of questions that you could train an outsourced support team to handle.
Good luck with the new plan anyway. Btw, any release date for v5 pencilled in yet?
Graham
March 31st, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Outsourcing customer service means that a) you put a barrier between yourself and your customers/potential customers and can lose touch with them, b) can make intensive calls on your time anyway, and c) is only sensible after your business reaches a big enough size to support a local employee anyway.
Give your plan a try, Jim!
March 31st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Poor Jimbo!
You’re so used to multi tasking and dare I say it, a bit of a workaholic, you’ll need phenomenal self discipline to make your plan work.
(pssst, it won’t work!)
It’s taken 8 years for me to get an assistant. To shift into delegation mode is difficult, then there’s the initial training interrupting your workflow etc etc.
But boy, when everything is in place and your help is rocking along nicely, it’s a HUGE relief.
I suggest you get an INHOUSE assistant, you’ll be so glad you did.
Good luck mate.
March 31st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Hi Jim,
I agree with several other commenters that limiting your customers’ opportunity to buy the product is probably not going to be the best way to free up your time. It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me, but I guess the only way you’ll know for sure is to try it.
Now you just need to figure out how to run an accelerated split test to get 6 months of two-days-a-month sales data in one week
Speaking for myself, STA was recommended to me by someone at a conference a couple of years ago. If I’d come back from there and tried to buy it, only to find out I’d just missed the sales days and had to wait another month chances are good that I would have looked for an alternative that I could get right away, all while shaking my head that an online store wouldn’t sell a digital product 24/7
March 31st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Hi,
Just thought I’d share my 2 cents.
If you’re trying to free up some spare time one option you could look at with outsourcing is to get some of your savvy customers on board as 1st line customer support (e.g. in a support forum) … from what I hear some guys will offer support becuase they like to help people and others for some sort of compensation (e.g. closer business relationship to a guy who knows testing and could really help their business).
Done right it means all the simple stuff will be taken care of and you only need to look at new issues that arise.
Hope this helps.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
SuFaq http://www.sufaq.com/ might help.
It lets you autmate some of the qestion ask/answer process.
Also videos on setting things up might help, some people find visuals easier.
And how about outsourcing the sales side instead of the helpdesk side?
March 31st, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Good one Jim!!
This makes a lot of sense - we live in a dynamic world and getting behind on creating new & better stuff will slowly kill you off.
Outsourcing makes sense if you can afford it, but it is difficult when nobody knows your stuff like you do.
I am also a ‘multi-hatted’ individual so relate exactly to your reasoning.
Win-win is all you have to focus on when making plans!
Regards,
Gavin
April 1st, 2008 at 2:42 am
Dear Jim,
Whilst I think you have the right approach - you clearly need to find ways of getting time back for your own sanity, I do not think this particular approach will work well for you. I am on the verge of buying STA - I got your course about a year ago and have just started in the Internet Marketing world full time so can now justify spending the money on your product. However, if I had to wait a whole month for the product I would find this very frustrating and probably would find it a bad customer experience (especialy if I did not understand the reasons for having to wait).
Having started and trained many IT support centres (I was a DBA and technical architect) I know it can be done - so before you jump on this do reflect! And good luck what ever you choose.
Rob
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Jim, I can totally relate - I used to run a software development company and I got so involved I staid all night programming c++.
My opinion today? get a programmer! you know this stuff, you can check if he´s good and how the project is progressing, but you need to focus ON YOUR BUSINESS ( marketing and sales, how to grow, jvs, etc..)
also, outsource customer support and everything that is taking your attention of what you really nnd to do.
April 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Read Michael Gerber’s “E-Myth Revisited”, if you haven’t already. I don’t pretend to know the details of your situation, but it sounds to me like you’ve got a “business process” problem not a “business” problem.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This is an interesting solution that I haven’t seen anyone else do and that nobody else can really tell you is right or wrong.
It would be interesting to see how much this affects your monthly sales- will people who visit during the “not available” period wait to buy or try some other product or just forget about it?
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Wow what a lot of comments on this!
Some followup:
1 - at least one thing is good and that’s the controversy you’ve stirred up - good for traffic
2 - don’t underestimate the technical resources out there that are cheap and experienced. Yes there’s a big gap between savvy internet marketers and php script installers, but I don’t think you’ll have too much problem finding a small firm to help you take on some of the technical services.
3 - good for you to take some action. Like anything in this business you need to test (as you know). I’ll bet you a Canadian beer that you’ll be better off selling 24/7 and reworking the support/tech. processes, but congrats on at least trying something.
Having issues with focus is common with entrepreneurs (also a huge problem for me) but I think it’s something that can be cracked and then you’re going to hit the big time.
Keep at it!
May 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I can see it both ways. My personal reaction was of disappointment at having to wait.
Don’t be surprised if the sales go UP.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Lol, perhaps you should split-test it.
I’m looking at purchasing it, but it needs to fit into a tight project plan. Do I wish to wait 2 weeks in the architecture build? No.
Is this limited sales window still happening?
July 17th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Hi Phillip.
STA is available full time again.